


In Transit

by thedaybeforelastwrites



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU bus fic, Alternate Universe, Fluff, Hint of Angst, Modern AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2170653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedaybeforelastwrites/pseuds/thedaybeforelastwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is probably going to be hit by a car one day.  </p><p>(A mostly fluffy Captain Swan one-shot w/ a touch of angst). (Continued in drabbles/ ficlets)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Transit

**Author's Note:**

> Gifted to: [erinspirateanon](http://erinspirateanon.tumblr.com/) for Captain Swan Secret Survivor on Tumblr. Inspired by the AU fanfic cliche post, specifically—- _Riding the same bus together literally everyday._
> 
> As of now this is a one-shot but I may write a second part to it (who knows?). 
> 
> As a side note: this is the first fic I've posted on AO3 but will not be the last.

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It’s been a month since the first time he saw her and the bus is full today. She ends up standing next to him, shouldering her bag and holding on to the seat in front of her. The bus lurches forward and their eyes meet for a second when she accidentally elbows him in the side. He smiles at her— politely, instinctively— and she murmurs sorry but doesn’t return the gesture. It’s the first time he’s ever heard her voice this close.

She smells like cinnamon.

He tries not to make it obvious when he inhales.

 

 

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_(Her eyes really are that green)_

 

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* * *

**In Transit**

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Her name is Emma, Killian learned by accident, and she is probably going to be hit by a car one day.

— _that_ , or at least be involved in one hell of a road rage induced fist fight.

It has been many days since he’d first seen her rounding the corner of his building, sprinting across the street to nearly catch the bus he is already on. It is this way at least ninety percent of the time and she never seems to pay any mind to the cars she jumps in front of, or the glaringly loud honking horns or swears from the drivers she’s cut off. In fact, on more than one occasion, he might have seen her flick off a vehicle or two as if  _they_  are the ones at fault and need to mind their business, which Killian always finds completely hysterical— but also assumes will be the root cause of the future brawl she may find herself in. (They are in New York City after all)

But no matter the weather or circumstances, she always— _always_ — makes it just in the nick of time (once he’d even saw her run half-barefoot, carrying a shoe with a missing heel). She is unbelievably interesting, a little chaos mixed in to the monotony of his days.

And Killian Jones, once upon a time, was a man who had loved a bit of chaos.

  
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A week from the first day he saw her, Killian watches as another man tries to chat her up.

It was only a matter of time really. The people who ride don’t vary that much and she is new, bloody attractive, beautiful with an edge and the first blond he’s ever noticed. He is surprised no one had approached her sooner.

Killian hasn’t been interested in approaching a woman (well in the daylight, or in anyway that could be construed to actually mean something when the night was up) for a  _very_  long time so approaching someone who would then still ride the same bus as him everyday had not been a thought he’d considered for long— no matter how striking she was.

Still, he can’t  _not_  watch when the man (one he has seen do this type of thing before with a fair amount of success and an ample amount of sleaze) places a hand on her arm. The man grins when she turns to look at him.

And its not Killian’s fault that his throat goes dry and he can’t drag his eyes away from the scene. He doesn’t care, not in any significant sense of the word, not exactly. It’s just curiosity making his chest tight.

But in the end, he would have had nothing to worry about anyway. It’s almost  _painful_  to watch. The whole thing only lasts a couple of uncomfortable minutes, before the whole bus seems to grow hot with her glare and the guy (the poor miserable fool that he is)  _finally_  gets the message.

How it could have taken even that long with the mocking smile and biting laugh that she’d started with, Killian doesn’t know but he watches as the guy clears his throat and backs off, rebuffed, stung pride clear to everyone.

The girl, for her part, looks faintly annoyed but completely composed, barely affected, and Killian is at once thoroughly relieved, _incredibly impressed_ , and silently chagrined. He doesn’t think that it was so much the particular guy approaching her that led to the rebuff. It easily could have been anyone.

 _'Do-Not-Approach-Me'_  is either her life motto or her name and somehow it does not matter which.

But… then again, it’s not like he was going to approach her anyway so why should he care? ‘ _All the better,_ ' he thinks, at least now he wont be tempted. Just because she's interesting doesn't mean that he has to be interested or anything like that.

 

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Killian Jones first saw Emma Swan on a normal ordinary day. He’d walked from work to the bus stop, waiting for the same one he’d been taking for years, and promptly boarded with little more than a thought.

  
It would have been like any other day except that on this particular one his eyes were drawn to the street outside the window by the honk of a car horn.

There was a woman making a mad dash across the traffic covered road. In the twilight with the sun-setting behind her he couldn’t clearly make her all the way out but after what felt like an hour of him staring (slowly becoming dumbfounded the closer she got), she was climbing the steps to get on.

Out of breath and golden-hair tousled, slightly sweaty ( _and really— kind of a mess_ ) she stopped somewhere up at the front and Killian promptly dropped his briefcase in (slightly shameful) awe. It happened to land on the foot of the guy standing next to him, and Killian bent, flustered and murmuring apologies, to pick it up.

It was a hard feat, considering his eyes were still glued to the back of the mystery woman’s glistening golden-haired head. She wasn’t a regular. She was—  _something else_. And his whole ride, even after she’d gotten off and he’d still had five more stops before he made it to his own, he’d managed to unceasingly wonder how it was possible that eyes could ever be  _that_  green.

  
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One month and one week from the first time he saw her, she isn’t alone. Another petite woman with short dark hair wearing a polka-dot dress boards the bus with her.

His bus girl (and this is how he thinks of her and can’t seem to ever stop himself) is almost always in tight denim jeans and tank tops, though he once saw her in a red dress that stole the air from his lungs.

The other woman has a laugh like bell chimes and seems to give off an air of more openness and friendliness than anyone he’s ever seen in his life. It is strange seeing  _her_  with this other woman. They seem _vastly_  different.

But it’s also sort of remarkable.

His bus girl is still guarded, somehow he’d already gathered that it’s her natural state and there’s a story behind it all (that maybe he wants to know), but there’s a twinkle in her eyes and an almost smile on her face that somehow seems brighter than any toothy one he’s witnessed before.

The way she looks— it makes his heart skip a beat because she’s beautiful— and yes, she’d always been— but like this, she is absolutely  _beautiful_  and he catches himself holding back a smile in response to her evident happiness.

Her friend catches him looking.

  
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The day after that, Killian doesn’t even look at her and it has nothing to do with the friend catching him the day before or her whispering in his bus girl’s ear with a smile.

_No._

It has entirely everything to do with how he’d gone to sleep that night thinking that he wouldn’t mind being one of the few that could make her almost smile and that he can’t deny anymore that he is interested in at least trying to talk to her.

It isn’t until he wakes up that he realizes it is the anniversary of the worst day of his life and he’d almost completely forgotten about it. The reason why a little chaos is bad. The reason why he won’t approach anyone for more than a night to ease his loneliness. Why brown hair is what normally catches his eye as if maybe it could belong to the person he’d loved. How could he have forgotten?

Woodenly, he stares at the woman in the picture beside his bed, eyes the color of rich summer soil (not the freshly cut grass he’s come to know recently) and the man in her arms that had once been him. Is that how he had looked when he was happy? Is that how he had looked when he’d almost smiled on the bus the day before?

(His wife would have hated it if she knew just how much he would not let himself move on. She’d been sick, she would remind him. _We prepared for it_. _We had our time. Just because I died doesn’t mean you had to_ , she’d say.)

It still feels like betrayal.

That afternoon, he thinks he senses green glancing in his direction and he bites the inside of his cheek. His blood has gone bitter with guilt.

He isn’t interested. He isn’t.  _He isn’t._

  
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He  _is._

 

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_But that doesn’t mean he can’t fight it._

 

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She only glances his way a few more times before her curiosity or suspicion (Killian is more inclined to believe it is the latter that is responsible for the attention) fades and she seems to forget him.

He tries his hardest not to feel like maybe he’d missed his chance.

(In all honesty—  _not that he’s being honest with himself_ — it doesn’t work.)

Weeks go by.

  
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He figures he’s definitely missed his chance the day she fails to get on the bus.

There is a guy, blond-haired and blue-eyed, that stops her in her tracks just outside as she’s making her way towards the door. Luckily, the windows are down but Killian still has to strain to hear the one word that he can.

The guy says her name.

( _Emma_ , Killian learns quite by accident and repeats in his head, watching. Emma. Her name is Emma. It’s so much prettier than anything he’d imagined and he wishes he had a reason to say it.)

 _Emma_  turns to the other guy and immediately starts to head his way, and now they are far enough away and speaking in quiet enough voices that Killian can’t make out a word that they’re saying. But it doesn’t matter. He  _sees_  all that he has to because she is  _smiling at this guy_  and then she’s laughing and the look on her face gives away how she feels. And Killian knows that she is not going to rebuff him like she had done the man on the bus before. This guy  _knows_ her. And she _knows_ him. And they’re _close._

And then Emma’s walking away with him and Killian wishes he could find something wrong with the man but as they walk away he reaches to carry Emma’s bag for her and when they reach it, he opens the passenger side car door for her to let her inside and really even from Killian’s spot in the bus and without having heard a real word of what the guy even said, the only descriptor that seems to fit him is…

 _—charming._  

  
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After that it becomes easier to allow himself to look at her again. She’s taken and nothing will come of it anyway so what’s the point in trying to stay away from her (and is he really so fucked up that he has already tried and failed to distance himself from someone he hasn’t even had a real conversation with yet?).

Today, Killian glances at his watch and his brows crinkle in confusion. By now Emma has normally appeared around the corner, glistening locks bouncing behind her and her bag held tight to her side.

He is just beginning to believe that she wont show and that maybe  _charming_  picked her up again— (a flare of unchecked jealousy settling in his chest, mingling with the lingering sense of disappointment )— when he spots her.

She’s sprinting. Sun setting behind her like always, and he doesn’t know what happened but he can tell from where he is that her jacket is torn and she looks exhausted.

But— she’s late. And the last person in line has already gotten on and the bus doors are closing as he watches. She’s only halfway across the street and though he can’t actually hear her yell, he can read lips enough to make out the “ _Wait_ " she mouths in his direction.

She isn’t going to make it.

"Hey," Killian finds himself speaking up, gaze never leaving her,"There’s one more person coming to get on."

The bus driver doesn’t even pretend that he cares, eyes indifferent in the rear view mirror. “Well that’s too bad,” he says, voice a bitter drawl, “I’m on a schedule. They’ll have to catch the next one.”

She is right there, just outside, just out of reach, and the bus jerks forward leaving her behind.

Killian expects her to look upset, but instead the expression that falls on her face is shockingly desperate. There is guilt and defeat and his heart gives one aching, awful lurch because this is the most open he’s ever seen her and the emotion that is the clearest is pain.

And he doesn’t get it. It doesn’t fit. That strong of a reaction to something so small. He doesn’t— but then for the first time he wonders:  _why._

She never misses the bus, she’s either on time (not very often) or makes it just in the nick of. But  _why?_ What’s her reason for running through the street, almost getting hit on a  _daily_  basis?

Any other person, at least after the first few times, would have cut his loses and just decided to wait for the next ride home. There is a reason for why this is so important to her, something that he’s not seeing, and though he doesn’t know why, he finds that he doesn’t need to.

Killian is pushing through the others standing in the aisle, digging into his back-pocket and rummaging through his wallet before he’s even registered his own movement.

It’s the only thing he can think to do.

The driver does glance at him then.

"Twenty enough to adjust your schedule by one minute mate?" 

  
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As she quickly climbs up the stairs, as if she thinks the driver might change his mind, Killian is putting his wallet away and the man in front of the steering wheel is pocketing his cash. (As it turns out, forty dollars, not twenty, is enough to change ones schedule in New York).

It only takes her a moment, eyes shifting from the driver to him, but Killian sees the realization dawn on her face, adding to the frantic look that has yet to fade and maybe that’s why she tells him more than he’s sure she would have otherwise.

"Thank you," she whispers staring at him, confusion lined between her brows and eyes a tad more wide than normal, "The next bus doesn’t come for another hour and I have to go and meet my son. He would have been alone—" she takes a breath and closes her eyes and Killian thinks,  _'Her son, that's what's important to her.'_

Her eyes blink open and she exhales. “Thank you,” Emma says again, far more calm. She seems to have realized that whatever she’d been fearing (Killian guesses something along the lines of her picturing her lad waiting for her, alone and confused by her not showing up) is not going to come to pass. He wonders if how strongly she had taken that image has anything to do with the story behind why she’s always so guarded and realizes he still wants to know her story.

"I’ll pay you back," she promises suddenly, reaching for her bag, "How much did—

But he cuts her off. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies back gently because he’d done it because he wanted to. He hadn’t even expected the gratitude she’s shown him already. “It was nothing.”

Her hand stops its descent in her bag, and she blinks and looks back up at him, eyes narrowing for a moment. Her brows crinkle and there is recognition there. Is she remembering that he is the guy her friend whispered to her about so many weeks ago? Is she thinking that he’d done this to win her over? Killian braces himself for distrust and suspicion.

He senses it. But she offers him her name instead.

"I’m Emma," she says, voice neutral (maybe curious) and perhaps it’s his surprise that lifts the fog from his eyes because in that moment she sounds musical to him and is all he can seem to see. It’s suddenly hard to not hear his wife making him promise that he’d still live after she was gone when he realizes his heart is beating too fast, "In case you wanted to know the name of the woman your shelling out cash for."

And it’s not a smile she gives him, but the tiniest little smirk, almost a challenge, that distracts him.

The bus lurches forward and Emma moves to grasp him at the waist to steady him when he nearly falls over; she holds on.

He stares at her and she stares back.

_She still smells like cinnamon._

And when she finally let’s go—  _quickly_ — she actually looks a little flustered and  _this_  is what somehow gives him hope.

"Killian Jones," he replies with a smirk. "Nice to finally meet you love."

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As it turns out, _charming_  is her brother.


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